A Father's Account of his Son's Deployment in Iraq

A miserable March day, overcast and cold, rain spit on our faces. Parents, spouses, and children all locked in the same nightmare, a bad dream, an insanity sending men and women off to war but somehow we agreed to let this thing happen. Behind our kids, behind our soldiers standing at attention, there is a graveyard. I am not amused by the irony; I am a part of it. This was the first day of what would be a God-awful fifteen months. On Mother’s Day, two months later, our son the soldier and his National Guard unit deployed to Iraq.

The World of Cyber Gender Bending and Computer Cross-Dressing

Electronic communication networks now construct much of our understanding of reality. The distinct categories of identity that develop in these digital realms along with the interface between the body and these electric fantasies create new possibilities for what some call “computer cross-dressing.” Just as “real world” drag queens disrupt gender categories that were previously considered static, computer cross-dressers deconstruct, explore, and reconstruct new identities. Communities of computer cross-dressers destabilize identity categories so that they are constantly in transit, bearing no stable ontological relationship between what is on the World Wide Web and who is behind the computer.

The fact of the matter is, we’re all lying to ourselves. We want to believe it’s possible to be holy. To feel divine. We sacrifice ourselves, put ourselves on the line, with the naïve notion it pleases some disembodied voice in the sky. We look to socially agreed upon models of exemplary “spiritual” human beings and attempt to replicate ad nauseam.

How our car culture ravages the psyche, community, and the natural world

Cars, cars, everywhere. From the shores of Hawaii to the mountains of New Mexico to the hamlets of northern Michigan, cars and trucks of all shapes and sizes, running rampant down the streets, possessing highways, monopolizing avenues, pompously pushing their way down lanes, drives, places, and boulevards. Running over pedestrians, bicyclists, and each other. Belching carbon dioxide, spewing oil, gluttonously guzzling gasoline, shedding rubber, metal, glass, and plastic. Shrieking, rumbling and carelessly careening in various directions at multiple speeds. [...]

Why Clinton Inc is bad news for the left

This current election is something else. The race between Obama and Hillary is a reminder of the absolute poison that the Clintons brought to the Democratic Party, and what a duplicitous and self-serving couple of thoroughly narcissistic people Bill and Hillary have always been. Bill Clinton, in campaigning for his wife, has degraded the institution of the Former Presidency down to the lowest common denominator. Case in point: His reference to Obama’s “fairytale” run for the White House and utilization of the race card – confirming what a classless individual ole’ Slick Willie really is.

The Clintons are a marriage (and a mirage) of a desultory individual from Arkansas and a conniving lawyer from suburban Chicago. [...]